


blow the candles out

by thememoriesfire



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thememoriesfire/pseuds/thememoriesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn turns eighteen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blow the candles out

Rachel’s hand tugs her along with a quick, “C’mon,  _trust me_.”

She doesn’t really do trust, as a matter of principle; something to do with the second to last time that someone said, “Trust me” and she ended up pregnant for 9 months, or the last time that someone said, “Trust me” and proceeded to emotionally cheat on her for basically an entire year with—

—right.  The girl tugging on her fingers right now, pulling her out of the school into the courtyard outside.

The entire club is there, and she feels herself stumble, Rachel’s hand jerking upwards quickly to help her regain her balance.

Finn and Puck look mildly uncomfortable; Sam just smiles at her, his hand low around Mercedes back, who gives her a wink before elbowing Tina and mumbling something.  Kurt inclines his head for just a second, and then all she can do is look back at Rachel questioningly.

“You haven’t celebrated it since…” Rachel says, before frowning and stopping.  ”At least, I don’t think you have; it’s entirely possible that you just didn’t invite me, but I’d like to think that… this year, you would have.”

Quinn focuses on the emotions playing across her too-expressive face; for someone dying to be an actress, Rachel really isn’t blessed with any particular ability at hiding how she feels.  She’s embarrassed about having set this up, now, because Quinn’s reaction was  _wrong_.  She’s not excited; she’s struck mute, and her face isn’t showing what’s going on inside of her chest—something painfully thrilling and wonderful.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she says, softly, and Rachel’s eyes flit back towards her own, staring for a long moment.

“I know that—things haven’t been ideal, for the last two years, but—I think of you as my friend, Quinn.  I always have.  We’ve had… some moments, haven’t we?” Rachel says, tentatively; a small and slightly sad smile playing around her lips.

Quinn feels air flit around her lungs for a harsh moment, and then says, “Yeah.  We have.”

She knows she should probably stop looking, because everyone else is waiting for her to descend the rest of the stairs and head towards the cake that’s on the piano, and Quinn wonders absently if Rachel baked it; if it’s vegan, and what vegan cake even  _tastes_  like.

Rachel gives them a signal of some kind, and a chorus of ‘ooh’s breaks out even as Kurt sings the first line of happy birthday; then Mercedes, even more slowly and with a thrilling vibrato on the ‘you’; then Santana, Tina and Artie, in a soft, whispered harmony, and finally Rachel, fingers still in hers.

*

The cake is delicious, and she wasn’t expecting anything else.

When she’s done licking a final bit of icing off her fork, Rachel looks at her askance and says, “I shouldn’t have dated Finn.”

“You deserved a real chance,” Quinn says, neutrally, because she’s so far over it now that really; even if they  _hadn’t_  broken up again over the summer, it wouldn’t have mattered.

“No.  What I mean is, I shouldn’t have dated  _Finn_ , when I already knew that he wasn’t what I want,” Rachel clarifies, and then feels around inside of her book bag for something.

Quinn says nothing.  There are questions, in her mind, but they’re too surreal to even be voiced.  Rachel sometimes just  _says_  things.  She’ll never understand how people do that, when the words that come out unexpectedly are always the ones to have the most haunting consequences.

Rachel always has liked living on the edge, though, and when she passes an envelope to Quinn, biting her lip, Quinn asks a different question instead.  ”What—”

“I’ve been working on… forgiving her.  Shelby.  For…”  Rachel sighs and looks at the rest of the club; working on some choreography in front of them, Finn and Puck wrassling each other in a way that might mean they’re actually friends again, now.  It’s funny how thinks work out, Quinn thinks, looking at the plain white envelope with Rachel’s neat scrawl on it.

“Santana assured me that you wouldn’t like feeling indebted to me, but I wanted to give you something anyway.  To—maybe start over with.”  

Rachel’s not making an awful lot of sense, but Quinn’s taking AP-levels of math for a reason, and it’s because she can piece things together in her mind long before other people can.  Like the fact that Finn didn’t love her, not really; like the fact that she knows she shouldn’t have cared about that as much as she did, when she herself didn’t love him.

She slides a nail under the flap of the envelope and pushes it open, and sees a two year old girl with bright eyes and a wide smile.

“I’m sorry if this is incredibly inappropriate.  I tried to think of what I could do for you that wouldn’t imply any obligations in kind, and—”  Rachel takes a deep breath and then looks away, focusing on the still-half-wet concrete they’re sitting on.  ”It’s strange, that she’s related to both of us, in a manner of speaking.  But I think it could also be kind of…”

“Special,” Quinn says, barely daring to glance away from the first picture to look at the second one; but this one’s even better, because it’s Rachel _and_  Beth, and Beth’s going to have an older sister who she’s not in constant competition with.  (Rachel  _knows_  that there’s a time and place, unlike anyone born into the Fabray family, and will support and push and carry Beth places that nobody else Quinn knows will be able to go.)

“Yeah,” Rachel breathes, softly.

She can only handle looking at the pictures for another few seconds, but then carefully closes the envelope and clasps it between both of her hands.

“You’re a fool,” she says, finally, because Rachel’s earned a bit of unfiltered thought.  (Quinn doesn’t dwell on the part where she’s capable of  _giving_  her that much, because there will be a time and a place to analyze that, and it’s not here, not now, in front of everyone.)  ”You give so much to people who just won’t ever deserve it, and—”

“I think you’re wrong, about deserving,” Rachel says, and Quinn doesn’t jolt when one of Rachel’s hands covers her own.  ”People see what you want them to see, Quinn, but I’ve also seen a lot more than that, and—”

“Rachel,” she says, softly, because this isn’t a bathroom and they aren’t alone.

“Have you ever wondered why we’ve always fought about Finn?” Rachel asks, undeterred, and Quinn feels her heart flip, just like that.

She could lie, and say no.  Or she could do this:

“I stopped  _wondering_  a long time ago.  But there’s a difference between wondering and… well.”

Rachel’s hand squeezes down, crumpling the envelope through Quinn’s fingers, and Quinn’s breath stalls in her throat.

“Can we—I’d like to talk about that, if that’s okay.  Not now.  But later, maybe,” Rachel says, carefully and guardedly.  Like she’s waiting to be shot down, or mocked somehow.

That much, Quinn probably deserves, and so she doesn’t quite manage a smile, but she can get a nod out of the way.

“Maybe.  If you give me that cake recipe,” she says, as lightly as she can.

Rachel’s expression brightens significantly, and even though it’s overcast and cold and Quinn’s  _knees_ are getting goosebumps just from sitting on the steps in the McKinley courtyard, this is far and wide the nicest birthday she’s ever had.

“It’s 100% vegan,” Rachel says.

 _I know_ , Quinn thinks, and smiles unwillingly.


End file.
